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Topic: hefeweizen starters (Read 1413 times)

So I think I remember this topic being discussed a while ago but I don't think it was ever really resolved. I have a starter for a hefeweizen going right now for a brew day this weekend and I wondered about decanting. As the hefe yeast is by it's very nature extremely non-floculant would you be selecting the wrong yeasts by decanting?

I wouldn't say that hefe yeast is "extremely" unfloculent. The white labs site says that both the 300 and the 380 are medium floculators. Remember that the haze in hefeweizen is generally a protien haze from the wheat. I'd say that if you stick it in the fridge you will be just fine pitching the decanted yeast.

Cool. that makes sense on the yeast haze. That's also good cause I am multitasking with this starter and doing a test of some home re-kilned malt to see if I killed the enzymes so if I can safely decant I can take final gravity readings on each of the samples

My standard operating procedure for 5 gallons of hefeweizen is to pitch a 1L starter active. No stir plate, just a shot of o2 in the beginning and some incremental stirring. Just make sure you have fresh yeast (not even close to expired vial/smack pack) and you are good to go.

I have not had as much luck harvesting bottom yeast from successive generations, seems to start lacking in ester profile. There's a good reason why the best weissbiers in the world are open fermented in shallow fermenters and top cropped.

Well, I had three 1 pint jars of wort canned from an earlier experiment awaiting some yeas to do a FFT with and the hefe yeast seemed like just the thing, so I split it three ways and into three different jars it went, all three fermented out to the same level. unfortunately one of the jars must not have had the foil tight enough cause a big ol' housefly got in there. So that one didn't get pitched into the main batch ( I did pitch it into an extra gallon I got though so we will see the effect of a house fly on hefeweizen)

All three dropped very clear in the fridge so I am not to worried about losing too much yeast.